Vacation and Meet Up with Friends – 2010

Our much needed vacation came and went quickly and started off with a BANG – literally.

We drove 7 hours to Crossville, TN to stay at Mariner’s Pointe Resort on Lake Holiday.  Once we arrived, we launched our boat, took our belongings in to our condo and then headed straight to Wal-Mart to buy our out of state fishing licenses.  On the way back to the condo we were rear-ended by a young driver.  Fortunately, no damage was done to our truck, since he landed on our hitch and the fellow only scuffed his vehicle up a little, so Troy shook hands with him and we left.

The rest of the week went much better!  We spent it fishing and swimming, fishing and swimming!

Saturday several families were able to drive out and meet up including Carey and Norman and their 3 children (private blog), Jenny and Randy and their two boys (private blog), Becky and Andrew, and Karen and Ilya.  We hung out at the resort pool, had lunch in the condo together, played mini-golf and then went out for pizza afterwards.  Eight children, 6 of which were Russian born, and we had no major incidents.  In fact, all the children were fantastically well behaved!

The following Monday we were able to spend more time with Jenny’s family at the zoo in Nashville, followed by a visit to my grandmother.

At my grandmother’s place we were able to meet a lady who works there in the office named Asya (Ah-sha).  She was born and raised in Russia and then lived in the Ukraine before coming to America.  She wanted so badly to meet us and Daniel.  Unfortunately, Daniel was sound asleep after the zoo visit, but we got to enjoy talking with her for quite a while.  Daniel finally woke up but was not the least bit interested in talking to her.  She understood and she just hugged and hugged Troy and I and kissed me and kept saying “thank you” over and over again.  I tried arguing with her, telling her we were the ones who were lucky and we were the ones who were thankful, but she wouldn’t have any of it.  Finally Troy and I just said “your welcome”.  She was a really interesting lady and I appreciated her tact with Daniel and the fact that she never tried to speak Russian to him or force anything on him.  We did say “pa-ka” to her when she left, which she loved!  I hope we meet her again.

Wednesday evening we were also able to spend more time with Carey’s family at the resort eating pizza and swimming.  We had a great time! 

Daniel woke up every morning asking “Where are my friends?”

It really made our vacation to see so many of our friends!!

Other events we enjoyed were a tour around the lake on the “big boat” as Daniel called it (the resort’s pontoon boat), an ice cream social with other vacationers, a fishing competition (which Troy got 2nd place in and a $10.00 gift certificate to a local bait store – he had a nice large mouth bass, but got beat out by a catfish!), a visit to an 8,000 square foot tree house (which we climbed ten stories up to the bell tower), a few shopping trips, and some air hockey!

We really had a great time.  I can’t believe it’s over and we’ll be headed back to work this week.

Enjoy some photos from our week!  The first set of photos is what I like to call the call the “good, obligatory photos” – and the second set are what I call our “reality photos” – You’ll see why!   

           

And here is the reality!

Tongue Out!

Not one, not one is looking at the camera! 

Apparently Pumba was hungry 

The buoy was more fun than fishing. 

Anything was more fun than fishing. 

At least he caught a fish that time.  He reminded me when I told him both he and daddy caught fish, that “you (meaning me) only caught seaweed!”

No need to say anything!